Abp. Gerhard Ludwig Müller, now Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in 2010. (CNS file photo)

Recent
headlines give the impression that the Catholic Church may soon
change her discipline about divorce and remarriage. Pope Francis, in
his interview with a Jesuit confrere, sympathetically described a
woman who after a failed first marriage has happily remarried and now
has five children. The Pope has called an extraordinary meeting of
the Synod of Bishops in October 2014 to discuss “the pastoral
challenges of the family”. A German diocese drew up its own
guidelines for divorced and remarried Catholics, allowing some of
them to receive Holy Communion under some circumstances.

What
is the average Catholic to think?

To
promote a more in-depth understanding
on “this pressing subject”, so that clergy may instruct the
faithful “in a manner consistent with the truth of Catholic
Doctrine”, L’Osservatore
Romano published
a lengthy article by the Prefect of the Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith clarifying the matter. The article, entitled
“The Power of Grace: On the
indissolubility of marriage and the debate concerning the civilly
remarried and the sacraments”, appeared in
the issue dated October 23 (actually published on Tuesday, October
22).

In
the introductory paragraph Abp. Gerhard Ludwig Müller notes that
“the
problem concerning members of the faithful who have entered into a
new civil union after a divorce is not new. The Church has always
taken this question very seriously and with a view to helping the
people who find themselves in this situation.” Given the
increasing numbers of Catholics in this situation in recent decades,
now “even firm believers are seriously wondering: can the Church
not admit the divorced and remarried to the sacraments under certain
conditions? ... Have theologians really explored all the
implications and consequences?”

Of
course this is not a matter of public opinion or evolving social
norms. “These questions must be explored in a manner that is
consistent with Catholic doctrine on marriage.” Abp. Müller goes
on to survey
Church teaching on the sacrament of marriage, citing Scripture,
patristic writers in both East and West, the Ecumenical Councils from
Trent to Vatican II, and the present-day Magisterium. The article
concludes with three shorter sections: “Observations based on
Anthropology and Sacramental Theology”, “Observations based on
Moral Theology” and “Pastoral Care”.

Jesus
himself taught that a valid marriage between two baptized Christians
cannot be dissolved (Mt 19:4-9). “The
Catholic Church has always based its doctrine and practice upon these
sayings of Jesus concerning the indissolubility of marriage.
The inner bond that joins the spouses to one another was forged by
God himself. It designates a reality that comes from God and is
therefore no longer at man’s disposal.” The Fathers of the
Church “rejected
divorce and remarriage, and did so out of obedience to the Gospel.
On this question, the Fathers’ testimony is unanimous. In patristic
times, divorced members of the faithful who had civilly remarried
could not even be readmitted to the sacraments after a period of
penance.”

What
about the subsequent Orthodox practice? “In many regions, greater
compromises emerged later, particularly as a result of the increasing
interdependence of Church and State. In the East this
development continued to evolve, especially after the separation from
the See of Peter, ... towards an increasingly liberal praxis.
In the Orthodox Churches today, there are a great many grounds for
divorce, which are mostly justified in terms of ...
pastoral leniency in difficult individual cases, and they open the
path to a second or third marriage marked by a penitential
character.”

“In
the West, ... the Catholic Church defended the absolute
indissolubility of marriage even at the cost of great sacrifice and
suffering. The schism of a ‘Church of England’ detached
from the Successor of Peter came about not because of doctrinal
differences, but because the Pope, out of obedience to the sayings of
Jesus, could not accommodate the demands of King Henry VIII for the
dissolution of his marriage.” The Council of Trent explicitly
confirmed the Gospel basis for the Church’s teaching that a
sacramental marriage cannot be dissolved.

In
the Pastoral Constitution Gaudium
et Spes
of Vatican II presents “a theologically and spiritually profound
doctrine of marriage... as an all-embracing communion of life
and love, body and spirit, between a man and a woman who mutually
give themselves and receive one another as persons.” Their free,
mutual consent brings about a “divinely ordered institution...
which is directed to the good of the spouses and of their offspring
and is no longer dependent on human caprice.... Through the
sacrament God bestows a special grace upon the spouses... [and
thereby] the indissolubility of marriage acquires a new and deeper
sense: it becomes the image of God’s enduring love for his
people and of Christ’s irrevocable fidelity to his Church.”

Post-conciliar
Magisterial teaching, for instance the Apostolic Exhortation
Familiaris
Consortio
(November 22, 1981 following the Synod of Bishops on the Christian
family in the modern world) reasserts the Church’s dogmatic
teaching on marriage but also “shows pastoral concern for the
civilly remarried faithful who are still bound by an ecclesially
valid marriage.” Pastors are obliged “to exercise careful
discernment of situations” (since some failed marriages may not
have been valid to begin with). Pastors and parish
communities must practice charity; divorced Catholics, too, “belong
to the Church; they are entitled to pastoral care and they should
take part in the Church’s life. And yet they cannot be
admitted to the Eucharist.”

The
two reasons given for this should be noted carefully. (1) “Their
state and condition of life objectively contradict that union of love
between Christ and the Church which is signified and effected by the
Eucharist.” (2) “If these people were admitted to the Eucharist,
the faithful would be led into error and confusion regarding the
Church's teaching about the indissolubility of marriage”.
Both of these reasons are theological: the first concerns the
divinely instituted nature of the sacraments of Marriage and the
Eucharist and the reverence due to them; the second reflects the
right of baptized members of the Church to the full teaching of
Christ. The sacramental reconciliation of divorced and remarried
Catholics “can only be granted in the case of repentance” and a
willingness to separate or (if there are small children to raise),
the promise to abstain from marital relations (“live as brother and
sister”). “Clergy are expressly forbidden ... to perform
ceremonies of any kind for divorced people who remarry civilly, as
long as the first sacramentally valid marriage still exists.”

The
Synod of Bishops in October 2012, in its concluding Message,
addressed “the faithful who after the failure of a marital
relationship (not the failure of a marriage, which being a sacrament
still remains) have entered a new union and live together without a
sacramental marriage bond.” The Synod Fathers said: “To all of
them we want to say that God’s love does not abandon anyone, that
the Church loves them, too, that the Church is a house that welcomes
all, that they remain members of the Church even if they cannot
receive sacramental absolution and the Eucharist. May our Catholic
communities welcome all who live in such situations and support those
who are in the path of conversion and reconciliation.”

While
recognizing the practical, “anthropological” arguments today
against the indissolubility of marriage (e.g. people live much longer
nowadays), it offers several in its favor as well: “Above all it
protects the children, who have most to suffer from marital
breakdown.” Whereas the Church has always acknowledged and
respected the human, earthly components of marriage, nowadays “a
serious pastoral problem arises from the fact that many people today
judge Christian marriage exclusively by worldly and pragmatic
criteria. Those who think according to the ‘spirit of the
world’ (1
Cor
2:12) cannot understand the sacramentality of marriage....
Sacramental marriage is a testimony to the power of grace, which
changes man....”

Under
the heading of “moral theology” the CDF Prefect cautions against
the idea “that remarried divorcees should be allowed to decide for
themselves, according to their conscience, whether or not to present
themselves for holy communion.” This argument, of course, is
“based on a problematical concept of conscience’, [which] was
rejected by a document of the CDF in 1994.” “If remarried
divorcees are subjectively convinced in their conscience that a
previous marriage was invalid, this must be proven objectively by the
competent marriage tribunals. Marriage is not simply about the
relationship of two people to God, it is also a reality of the
Church, a sacrament.”

Other
moral theologians have argued that the concept of epikeia
can be applied to divorced and remarried Catholics: in other words,
even though the Church teaches that a sacramental marriage cannot be
dissolved, this general rule does not always apply to specific human
situations. Epikeia,
however, “may not be invoked here, because in the case of the
indissolubility of sacramental marriage we are dealing with a divine
norm” that is beyond the Church’s control.

To
those who allege that allowing some divorce and remarriage would be a
sign of God’s mercy, the CDF Prefect replies, “God’s mercy does
not dispense us from following his commandments or the rules of the
Church. Rather it supplies us with the grace and strength
needed to fulfil them, to pick ourselves up after a fall, and to live
life in its fullness according to the image of our heavenly
Father.... If pastoral care is rooted in truth and love, it will
discover the right paths and approaches in constantly new ways.”

About the Author

Michael J. Miller

Michael J. Miller translated Eleven Cardinals Speak on Marriage and the Family and Christ’s New Homeland—Africa for Ignatius Press (2015).

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